Chapter 10: Development - Weeblymrsichakpchs.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/2/3/11239671/ch10.pdf · Field...

Chapter 10: Development

© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Field Note: Geography, Trade, and Development

“Walking down one of the major

streets of Timbuktu, Mali , I could

hardly believe I was in the

renowned intellectual, spiritual,

and economic center of the

thirteenth to sixteenth centuries.

At that time, the place had a great

reputation for wealth, which

spurred the first European

explorations along the African

coast. What survives is a relatively

impoverished town of some 35,000

people providing central place

functions for the surrounding area

and seeking to attract some tourist

business based on its legendary

name.”


Key Question

How is development defined

and measured?


• Wealth does not depend solely on what is

produced; it depends in large part on how and

where it is produced.

• A country that is developing is making progress in

technology, production, and socioeconomic well-

being.

• Ways of measuring development fit into three

major areas of concern: development in economic

welfare, development in technology and

production, and development in social welfare.


How Is Development Defined

and Measured?

• GNP is a measure of the total value of the officially

recorded goods and services produced by the

citizens and corporations of a country in a given

year, and includes things produced both inside and

outside the country’s territory.

• Gross domestic product (GDP), which

encompasses only goods and services produced

within a country during a given year.

Gross National Income



and Measured?

• Gross national income (GNI): monetary worth of

what is produced within a country plus income

received from investments outside the country minus

income payments to other countries.

• The most common way to standardize GNI data is to

divide it by the population of the country, yielding

the per capita GNI.

• Formal economy: the legal economy that

governments tax and monitor.

• Informal economy: uncounted or illegal economy

that governments do not tax and keep track of.© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.



and Measured?

• GNI per capita masks extremes in the

distribution of wealth within a country.

• GNI per capita measures only outputs (i.e.,

production). It does not take into account the

nonmonetary costs of production.

• The limitations of GNI have prompted some

analysts to look for alternative measures of

economic development, ways of measuring the

roles that technology, production,

transportation, and communications play in an

economy.




and Measured?

• Other analysts focus on social welfare to measure

development dependency ratio: a measure of the

number of dependents, young and old, that each

100 employed people must support.

• A high dependency ratio can result in significant

economic and social strain.

• We can employ countless other statistics to

measure social welfare, including literacy rates,

infant mortality, life expectancy, caloric intake per

person, percentage of family income spent on food,

and amount of savings per capita.




and Measured?

“My own research is based on fieldwork in Indonesia as well as ongoing

engagement with students in the United States. The women pictured here

collaborated with me on a research/activism project for migrant women workers in

Indonesia. The woman on the left (“Rina”) had returned from working in Saudi

Arabia as a domestic worker for two years. She wanted to return to Saudi Arabia

for another contract to earn more money for herself and her family, but she was

concerned about her rights and her safety.” Credit: Rachel Silvey, University of

Toronto

Guest Field Note:Sukabumi, West Java


• Criticism of the development model:

• It does not take geographical differences

very seriously.

• The conceptualization of development has

a Western bias.

• It does not consider the ability of some

countries to influence what happens in

other countries.


Development Models


and Measured?

Walt Rostow’s modernization model: assumes that all countries follow a similar path to development or modernization, advancing through five stages of development:

1. The society is traditional, and the dominant activity is subsistence farming.

2. Preconditions of takeoff: New leadership moves the country toward greater flexibility, openness, and diversification.

3. Takeoff: the country experiences something akin to an Industrial Revolution, and sustained growth takes hold.

4. Drive to maturity: Technologies diffuse, industrial specialization occurs, and international trade expands.

5. High mass consumption: high incomes and widespread production of many goods and services.


Figure 10.5Rostow’s Ladder of Development. This ladder assumes that all countries can reach the same level of development and that all will follow a similar path. Adapted with permission from: P. J. Taylor. “Understanding Global Inequalities: A World-Systems Approach,” Geography, 77 (1992): 10–21.


Is the idea of economic development inherently

Western? If the West (North America and

Europe) were not encouraging the “developing

world” to “develop,” how would people in the

regions of the “developing world” think about

their own economies?


Key Question

How does geographical situation

affect development?


• Development happens in context: it reflects what is

happening in a place as a result of forces operating

concurrently at multiple scales.

• Neocolonialism: the major world powers continue

to control the economies of the poorer countries,

even though the poorer countries are now politically

independent states.

• Structuralist theory holds that difficult-to-change,

large-scale economic arrangements shape what can

happen in fundamental ways.


How Does Geographical Situation

affect Development?

Dependency Theory• Holds that the political and economic relationships between countries

and regions of the world control and limit the economic development

possibilities of poorer areas.

• Dollarization: the country’s currency, the colon, was abandoned in

favor of the dollar.

Figure 10.6

San Salvador, El Salvador. A woman and young boy use dollars to pay for groceries in El Salvador, a country that underwent dollarization in 2001.

© AFP/News Com, Yuri Cortez.


Geography and Context

• Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory

• Three-tier structure—the core, periphery, and

semiperiphery—helps explain the interconnections

between places in the global economy.

• When core processes are embedded in a place,

wealth is generated for the people in that place.

• Peripheral processes require little education, lower

technologies, and lower wages and benefits.

• The semiperiphery exhibits both core and

peripheral processes, and semiperipheral places

serve as a buffer between the core and periphery in

the world-economy.


• World-systems theory makes the power

relations among places explicit and does

not assume that socioeconomic change will

occur in the same way in all places.

• World-systems theorists see domination

(exploitation) as a function of the capitalist

drive for profit in the global economy.

• World-systems theory is applicable at

scales beyond the state.


How Does Geographical Situation

affect Development?

Geography and Context

Compare and contrast Rostow’s ladder of

development with Wallerstein’s three-tier

structure of the world economy as models

for understanding a significant economic

shift that has occurred in a place with

which you are familiar.


Key Question

What are the barriers to and

the costs of economic

development?


• United Nations Human Development Index:

goes beyond economics and incorporates

the “three basic dimensions of human

development: a long and healthy life, know

ledge and a decent standard of living”

• Several statistics, including per capita GDP,

literacy rates, school enrollment rates, and

life expectancy at birth, factor into the

calculation of the Human Development

Index.


What Are the Barriers to and the

Costs of Economic Development?

Millennium Development Goals:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

2. Achieve universal primary education.

3. Promote gender equality and empower women.

4. Reduce child mortality.

5. Improve maternal health.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability.

8. Develop a global partnership for development.




Barriers to Economic Development

Social Conditions

• High birth rates and low life expectancies at birth,

high infant and child mortality rates, lack of access

to healthcare, lack of access to education:

trafficking

Foreign Debt

• structural adjustment loans, neoliberalism (the

idea that government intervention into markets is

inefficient and undesirable, and should be resisted

wherever possible)© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.



Field Note

“Arriving in Argentina during the

political and economic

upheavals that had begun in 2001,

I saw signs of dislocation and

trouble everywhere. Beggars

pursued pedestrians on the once-

fashionable Avenida Florida. Banks

had installed protective shutters

against angry crowds demanding

return of their frozen and devalued

deposits. A bus trip on the

Patagonian Highway turned into an

adventure when masked protesters

carrying rocks and burning rags

stopped vehicles and threatened

their occupants. Newspapers

carried reports of starvation in

Tucumán Province—in a country

capable of producing seven times

the food its population needs.”


Disease

• Those living in the global economic periphery

experience comparatively high rates of disease and

a corresponding lack of adequate health care:

• Vectored diseases: those spread by one host

(person) to another by an intermediate host or

vector

• Malaria: the “silent tsunami”


Barriers to Economic Development



Political Corruption and Instability

• Can greatly impede economic development.

• In peripheral countries, a wide divide often

exists between the very wealthy and the poorest

of the poor.

• Countries of the core have established

democracies for themselves but countries in the

periphery and semiperiphery have had a much

harder time establishing and maintaining

democracies.

• In places where poverty is rampant, politicians

often become corrupt, misusing aid and

exacerbating the plight of the poor.

• In low-income countries, corrupt leaders can

stay in power for decades.


Costs of Economic Development

Industrialization

• Export processing zones (EPZs) offer favorable

tax, regulatory, and trade arrangements to foreign

firms.

• Mexican maquiladoras

• Special economic zones of China

• In 1992, the United States, Mexico, and Canada

established the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA), which prompted further

industrialization of the border region.© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.



Agriculture

• In peripheral countries, agriculture typically focuses

on personal consumption or on production for a

large agricultural conglomerate.

• Little is produced for the local marketplace because

distribution systems are poorly organized.

• On the farms in the periphery, yields per unit area

are low, subsistence modes of life prevail, and many

families are constantly in debt.

• Desertification is more often exacerbated by

humans destroying vegetation and eroding soils

through the overuse of lands for livestock grazing or

crop production.

• Africa has been hit hardest by desertification.


Tourism

• Now one of the major industries in the world and

has surpassed oil in its overall economic value.

• To develop tourism, the “host” country must make

a substantial investment.

• Much of the income a country receives from

tourism revenues are reinvested in the

construction of airports, cruise-ports, and other

infrastructure that supports more tourism.

• Tourism can create local jobs, but they are often

low-paying and have little job security.

• Tourism frequently strains the fabric of local

communities.

• The cultural landscape of tourism is frequently a

study in harsh contrasts.


Think of a trip you have made to a poorer

area of the country or a poorer region of the

world. Describe how your experience in the

place as a tourist was fundamentally different

from the everyday lives of the people who live

in the place.


Key Question

How do political and economic

institutions influence uneven

development within states?


• Regional contrasts in wealth are a reminder that

per capita GNI does not accurately represent the

economic development of individual places.

• The contrasts between rich and poor areas are not

simply the result of differences in the economic

endowments of places.

• Government policy frequently affects development

patterns.


How Do Political and Economic

Institutions Influence Uneven

Development within States?

The Role of Governments

• The distribution of wealth is affected by tariffs,

trade agreements, taxation structures, land

ownership rules, environmental regulations.

• Government policies play an important role at the

interstate level, but they also shape patterns of

development within states.

• Government policy can also help alleviate uneven

development.

• Economist Pietra Rivola: The Travels of a T-Shirt in

the Global Economy: described the significant

influences governments have on the distribution of

wealth between and within states.


Islands of Development

• In most states, the capital city is the political nerve

center of the country, its national headquarters

and seat of government.

• In many countries of the global economic periphery

and semiperiphery, the capital cities are by far the

largest and most economically influential cities in

the state.

• Some newly independent states have built new

capital cities, away from the colonial headquarters.

• Island of development: a government or

corporation builds up and concentrates economic

development in a certain city or small region.


Figure 10.15Putrajaya, Malaysia. Putrajaya is the newly built capital of Malaysia, replacing Kuala Lumpur.© Bazuki Muhammad/Reuters/Corbis.


Field Note“Before the 1970s, Gabon’s principal

exports were manganese, hardwoods,

and uranium ores. The discovery of oil

off the Gabonese coast changed all that.

This oil storage tank at the edge of Port

Gentil is but one reminder of a

development that has transformed

Gabon’s major port city—and the

economy of the country as a whole. Oil

now accounts for 80 percent of Gabon’s

export earnings, and that figure is

climbing as oil prices rise and new

discoveries are made. But how much the

average citizen of Gabon is benefiting

from the oil economy remains an open

question. Even as health care and

infrastructure needs remain unmet, the

French publication L’Autre Afrique listed

Gabon’s recently deceased ruler as the

African leader with the largest real

estate holdings in Paris.”


Creating Growth in the Periphery of

the Periphery

• In the most rural, impoverished regions of

less prosperous countries, some

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)

try to improve the plight of people.

• Each NGO has its own set of goals,

depending on the primary concerns

outlined by its founders and financiers.

• Microcredit programs give loans to poor

people, particularly women, to encourage

development of small businesses.


Figure 10.17Bwindi, Uganda. Women walk by a microcredit agency that works to facilitate economic development in the town. © Alexander B. Murphy.


• Some microcredit programs

are credited with lowering

birth rates in parts of

developing countries and

altering the social fabric of

cultures by diminishing

men’s positions of power.

• Microcredit programs have

been less successful in

places with high mortality

rates from diseases such

as AIDS.


Creating Growth in the Periphery of

the Periphery

Concept Caching:AIDS sign—India

© Barbara Weightman

http://www.conceptcaching.com/view_a_cache.php?cid=314

http://www.conceptcaching.com/view_a_cache.php?cid=314

Additional Resources

• Global Poverty

http://www.worldbank.org/poverty

• Gabon

http://www.learner.org/resources/series180.html#program_descriptions

Click on Video On Demand for Gabon: Sustainable Resources?


http://www.worldbank.org/poverty

http://www.learner.org/resources/series180.html

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